I’ve had a basketful of bad luck over the last few years, what with losing my wife of forty years and son to cancer and then suffering a couple of strokes. So perhaps now is the time to do something to wipe the slate clean and see if I can buy off the Devil who is bugging me. I had thought about perhaps doing something like riding my bicycle to Moscow, like Carol Thatcher did, but she is a lot braver and fitter than I am.

I’d much prefer to do something to raise money that for most of the time had me sitting in a comfortable chair and that at night allowed me to sleep most nights in my own bed.

The task, if I will accept it, is to visit all the 92 Premier and Football League grounds in alphabetical order in one calendar month, using only trains, trams, buses and Shanks’s pony. More details on the rules are here.

I have created a page of all the teams and it looks like it will be possible to do it in a 31-day month. The details are here.

October, this year would be a good choice as on the 1st, Aldershot, who are second alphabetically, play Accrington Stanley who are first. So hopefully, I could visit the match and then get a lift back to Aldershot on a supporters coach, just in time to get a train back to London and do Arsenal on the way home.

On the other hand there are some interesting days, where several clubs are close to each other both in alphabetic order and geographically or easier to get between. There are.

3rd – Birmingham, Blackburn, Blackpool and Bolton

15th – Liverpool, Macclesfield, Manchester City, Manchester United and then on to Middlesbrough

17th – Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich, Notts County, Nottingham Forest and then on to Oldham

21st – Rotherham, Scunthorpe, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday and then on to Shrewbury

23rd – Swansea, Swindon, Torquay and then back to Tottenham.

Other than the Accrington-Aldershot match, there would appear to be games on the 15th at Macclesfield, the 22nd at Stevenage and perhaps it will all end on the 29th at Yeovil.

Obviously any money I raise will go to Liverpool University to help with research into pancreatic cancer. See Donations for more details.

At a first glance there are a few difficult teams.

Bournemouth

Bradford

Colchester

Coventry

Crawley Town

Doncaster

Oxford United

Plymouth

Port Vale

Shrewsbury

Stoke

Swindon

Torquay

Yeovil

Any help on buses or walking routes for these would be appreciated. Lifts, although I’m grateful for the thought, are not allowed.

The irony is that I don’t think this would have been possible for me, until this year, as now Marks and Spencer’s now have stagetically placed pit-stops in many stations, where I can get wholesome gluten-free sandwiches to speed me on my way.

Valley Parade is a 15 minute walk from Bradford Forster Square and 25 from Bradford Interchange, there’s a fair few buses (most of which leave Bradford Interchange) that go along Manningham Lane that runs right by the ground and the stadium is easily visible, if you were to ask locals for directions to the ground, I should think that pretty much anyone could tell you where the ground is.

About This Blog

What this blog will eventually be about I do not know.

But it will be about how I’m coping with the loss of my wife and son to cancer in recent years and how I manage with being a coeliac and recovering from a stroke. It will be about travel, sport, engineering, food, art, computers, large projects and London, that are some of the passions that fill my life.

And hopefully, it will get rid of the lonely times, from which I still suffer.